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Thread: New Wikileaks Dump Shows How The CIA Hacked Macs And iPhones Almost A Decade Ago

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    Exclamation New Wikileaks Dump Shows How The CIA Hacked Macs And iPhones Almost A Decade Ago



    The introduction of UEFI firmware to the general-purpose x86 platform — i.e. that which Mac users call "a PC" — as a replacement for the legacy BIOS has always been controversial.

    See, one of the companies on the UEFI committee is Microsoft, and as part of the specifications that allow computer vendors to put those colorful "Designed for Microsoft Windows™" stickers on their machines, Microsoft has begun demanding that x86 machines which are to be sold with a pre-installed copy of Microsoft Windows 8.0 or later would have the Secure Boot feature of UEFI turned on. Secure Boot requires that the installed operating system contains a security key, issued only by Microsoft. Without this security key, an operating system cannot boot on machines with UEFI and Secure Boot.

    Although touted as a security feature regarding boot-time viruses, most of the proponents of Free & Open Source Software — myself included — interpret this as yet another anti-competitive measure by Microsoft, by which the company was trying to make it harder — not impossible, but harder — to install non-Microsoft operating systems (such as GNU/Linux or FreeBSD) on x86 hardware.

    Contrary to the Apple Macintosh and specialized proprietary workstations or servers from other companies like Sun Microsystems (now owned by Oracle), IBM or SGI, all of which come with a proprietary and vendor-supplied (UNIX-family) operating system, the x86 platform had always been an open architecture that everyone could develop an operating system for. It is believed that by enforcing UEFI and Secure Boot upon the open x86 platform, Microsoft is trying to usurp the x86 platform and tie it to Microsoft Windows in the same way as that macOS is tied to the Apple Macintosh, or that Solaris was tied to the Sun SPARC/UltraSPARC architecture, or AIX to IBM hardware, or IRIX to SGI hardware, or HP/UX to Hewlett-Packard's PA-RISC hardware.

    But now the UEFI debacle has taken a whole new twist. One of the differences between UEFI and the legacy BIOS is that on a modern-day x86 machine, the legacy BIOS is only active during the cold boot sequence, before the operating system is loaded. Once the operating system boots — whether it's Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, eComStation, BSD, Haiku, OpenIndiana or another 32-bit or 64-bit operating system — the BIOS is no longer active, because the BIOS code is only 16-bit, single-tasking, and must be executed in the x86 processor's "real mode" — so-called because it allows any software running in this mode to access the physical memory and hardware addresses — while modern-day operating systems don't use "real mode" anymore.

    UEFI on the other hand runs in the processor's "native" mode — either 32-bit "protected mode" or 64-bit "long mode", which is also what the operating system itself then runs in — with as a result that the UEFI firmware can remain active in the background while the operating system has already booted and is executing instructions.

    Ever since the beginning of the new millenium, Apple has been creating its Macintosh computers with Intel x86 processors instead of their earlier proprietary PPC processors, which were co-designed with IBM. As such, all Apple machines with an x86 processor became equipped with the EFI firmware, the predecessor to UEFI. But now, in light of the Wikileaks "Vault 7" revelations, new information has come up, illustrating how the CIA has already been hacking Apple computers and devices for almost a decade by compromising their EFI/UEFI firmware, which is similar to what Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA was doing with other firmware-equipped devices, such as routers, smart televisions, et al.

    Mainstream news article below...








    Source: Motherboard


    The new documents show how the CIA was ahead of the curve in attacking Apple computers.


    Earlier this month, when WikiLeaks dumped a cache of hundreds of secret documents allegedly detailing the CIA's hacking operations, Julian Assange promised that was just "less than 1%" of what the secret-spilling had in its hands. On Thursday, WikiLeaks released a new cache of twelve documents, mostly detailing how the CIA allegedly hacked Apple computers and cellphones around a decade ago.

    "These documents explain the techniques used by CIA to gain 'persistence' on Apple Mac devices, including Macs and iPhones and demonstrate their use of EFI/UEFI and firmware malware," WikiLeaks stated in a press release.

    EFI and UEFI is the core firmware for Macs, the Mac equivalent to the Bios for PCs. By targeting the UEFI, hackers can compromise Macs and the infection persists even after the operating system is re-installed.

    The documents are mostly from last decade, except a couple that are dated 2012 and 2013.




    While the documents are somewhat dated at this point, they show how the CIA was perhaps ahead of the curve in finding new ways to hacking and compromising Macs, according to Pedro Vilaca, a security researcher who's been studying Apple computers for years.

    Judging from the documents, Vilaca told Motherboard in an online chat, it "looks like CIA were very early adopters of attacks on EFI."

    "It looks like CIA is very interested in Mac/iOS targets, which makes sense since high value targets like to use [those]," Vilaca told me. "Also interesting the lag between their tools and public research. Of course there's always unpublished research but cool to see them ahead."

    One example where the CIA appears to have anticipated what independent security researchers later found out is what the agency calls "Sonic Screwdriver," a technique to infect Macs with malware stored in an Apple Thunderbolt-to-Ethernet adapter, according to one leaked document.

    Sonic Screwdriver, according to Vilaca, appears to be the same attack that Trammel Hudson later showcased in late 2014 and dubbed Thunderstrike.

    While the two techniques look similar, the CIA's one appears to have different capabilities, and might have also been inspired by a talk at the Black Hat security conference in 2012, by a researcher known as Snare.

    Sonic Screwdriver allowed the CIA to install its tools on a Mac even if the firmware password was enabled, while Thunderstrike allowed an adapter to overwrite the motherboard boot flash, which provided a more persistent intrusion.

    Another document dated 2008 alleges that the CIA had developed a malicious implant for the iPhone that could be "physically installed onto factory fresh iPhones," according to WikiLeaks.

    "[NightSkies] is installed via physical access to the device and will wait for user activity before beaconing," the document reads.

    This suggests that just like the NSA, the CIA at some point might have been able to intercept iPhones and compromise them before they reached the target.

    The CIA declined to comment.


    Source: Motherboard
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    Why am I NOT surprised...

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    Cell phones are the "mark of the beast" we all feared.

    My favorite meme is when "woke" individuals proudly say "I don't have a smart phone, just an old cell phone" & I always think to myself "oh, you only carry a 2 or 3 sensor package instead of a 8 or 9 one like other people"..

    I thought people would "get it" after it was announced we now target cellphones in drone strikes in the middle east, no cellphone is safe to carry with a battery in it (funny how the new smartphones cannot have their battery removed...).

    I personally don't spend a lot of mental effort on this topic however, just take it for granted that everything network connected is compromised; but unless you become a target, it's not actively monitored.
    Last edited by TargeT, 23rd March 2017 at 18:47.

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    Quote Originally posted by TargeT View Post
    Cell phones are the "mark of the beast" we all feared.

    My favorite meme is when "woke" individuals proudly say "I don't have a smart phone, just an old cell phone" & I always think to myself "oh, you only carry a 2 or 3 sensor package instead of a 8 or 9 one like other people"..

    I thought people would "get it" after it was announced we now target cellphones in drone strikes in the middle east, no cellphone is safe to carry with a battery in it (funny how the new smartphones cannot have their battery removed...).

    I personally don't spend a lot of mental effort on this topic however, just take it for granted that everything network connected is compromised; but unless you become a target, it's not actively monitored.
    Hello there. Good to see you here.
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    Quote Originally posted by TargeT View Post
    Cell phones are the "mark of the beast" we all feared.
    I believe that too, and I would say that this is probably even more the case now with smartphones, when more and more corporations (including financial institutions) are beginning to assume, and as such also promote — and at some foreseeable point in the future, most likely even demand — that everyone would and should possess a smartphone. And then there are the so-called smart watches, as well as "augmented reality" headsets like Google Glass, which looks just like an ordinary pair of glasses.

    Remember, they're not just wearing it on their hands, but also on their foreheads, according to the Biblical prophecy.

    Quote Originally posted by TargeT View Post
    [...]

    I personally don't spend a lot of mental effort on this topic however, just take it for granted that everything network connected is compromised; but unless you become a target, it's not actively monitored.
    It's not only about surveillance, but also about the ability to remotely deploy computers and internet-connected devices (such as smartphones) for conducting cyber-warfare, as well as that apart from offering increased surveillance, internet-connected devices can also become weaponized, and especially if we're moving onto the topic of transhumanism.





    Quote Originally posted by modwiz View Post
    Quote Originally posted by TargeT View Post

    [...]
    Hello there. Good to see you here.
    Yes, we might as well extend our warmest welcome to him here on this thread. We are after all a pretty informal bunch.


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